Russ Feingold: By Damaging Our Partnerships, We Damage Our Security

[marmar]

from HuffPost:





Russ Feingold
By Damaging Our Partnerships, We Damage Our Security
Posted March 18, 2008 | 10:42 PM (EST)



As the war in Iraq enters its sixth year, official US casualty figures approach 4,000 dead and nearly 30,000 wounded. These figures exclude the many who have less visible but no less damaging injuries to mental health; those whose injuries resulted from accidents while they served in a war zone; and the scores of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Iraqi civilians who have died and been wounded since this misguided war was launched. These are the most meaningful - and the saddest - costs of this war.

We know, however, that these statistics, along with the hundreds of billions of dollars already spent to date, do not fully measure the costs of this war. There are other serious casualties - ones that have potentially severe consequences to our national security and our personal safety but are difficult to quantify. The most concerning of these is the damage the war has caused to our international standing and the partnerships that are vital to address the very real continuing risks to our safety posed by al Qaeda. By invading Iraq, we have, in effect "cried wolf" - we've used up our international chits and credibility attacking a country that had nothing to do with 9-11 and had virtually no connection to al Qaeda.

Just last week we learned that after five years of research by the U.S. Joint Forces Command, based on more than 600,000 captured documents, including audio and video files, the Pentagon determined conclusively that there was no evidence of a Saddam - al Qaeda link. Meanwhile, both our Director of National Intelligence and Secretary of Defense recently testified that al Qaeda has regenerated in the Afghan-Pakistan border region and that "there's no doubt that they have the intent of attacking the United States."

Our presence in Iraq, at the expense of a more robust and sustained military effort in the Afghan-Pakistan border region, has now strained the continued willingness of NATO countries to support the pursuit of al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. NATO's supreme Commander John Craddock, in recent testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, put it rather starkly. Afghanistan and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, he said, are at a "critical juncture." The reluctance of NATO countries to increase or even continue support in Afghanistan "increases the risk to every soldier, sailor, airman and marine deployed in theater." In short, through our continued presence in Iraq, and the resulting inadequate focus on the Afghan-Pakistani border areas, we are compromising our key security partnerships and joint security initiatives in the places where they matter the most. One can only wonder what the willingness - and capacity - of our historic partners will be if a crisis erupts elsewhere in the world and truly requires joint military action. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-russ-feingold/by-damaging-our-partnersh_b_92168.html

[undeterred]

1. Russ Feingold: Right from day one.

:patriot:

[SammyWinstonJack]

2. K&R!